Taiwan cyberattacks preceded Pelosi visit

Cyberattacks against the Taiwanese government and infrastructure commenced days prior to the visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the country, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. More than 32,000 suspicious activities, including malware and vulnerability scanning, were identified on July 29, or five days prior to Pelosi's arrival, compared with nearly 9,000 to 17,000 usual daily detections, a report from Trellix's Advanced Research Center showed. Significantly more malicious activity was targeted at government agencies and retail stores, while Taiwan's tech sector was also subjected to attacks. "We assess with moderate confidence that the increase in malicious activity detected in Taiwan may be related to active and passive scanning, as well as pre-operational activities, such as actively compromising IoT devices, testing malware or attack vectors prior increasing attack potency, and so on. It is also possible that cyberattacks were taking place almost a week before Pelosis arrival on the island, starting on the exact day Pelosis trip was confirmed, which triggered a spike in detections," said researchers.